HERE’S THE DEAL about Brad Meltzer: He
saved the house where Superman was created.

But there’s more:
• He married his high school sweetheart.

• He co-wrote the pledge for AmeriCorps
participants.

• His passion seems to be passion.

• He may be Clark Kent, reincarnated.

If you would like to know more about this
author of seven bestsellers, I recommend you
take a look at his first nonfiction book, Heroes
for My Son, out this month. Just as you can tell
a lot about people based on the friends they
keep, you can learn plenty based on the
heroes they revere. Heroes is a straightforward
series of brief profiles of the heroes Meltzer
has collected on his 40-year journey as husband, father, novelist, comic-book writer and
all-around good guy.

As the title suggests, Meltzer conceivedthe book as a way of conveying to his new-born son stories about the importance ofhumility, sacrifice, perseverance, passion andintegrity. Now the father of three, Meltzersays, “These are the stories I want my kids togrow up with.”Here are a few of the heroes in the book:Norman Borlaug, the scientist who devel-oped high-yielding, disease-resistant grainsand saw that they were deployed to save mil-lions of lives in China, India, Mexico and else-where.

Frank Shankwitz, co-founder of the
Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Clara Hale, who, over the course of more
than 20 years, helped raise nearly 1,000 abandoned children, many of whom came to her
as infants born with HIV/AIDS or suffering
drug withdrawal.

You were expecting Martin Luther KingJr., George Washington and Lou Gehrig?They’re in the book too. It’s just that, toMeltzer, heroes don’t have to be famous, andthey don’t have to be especially brave. Theysimply are ordinary people who have tappedinto the extraordinary possibilities andstrengths we all have.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Top: Meltzer plays with his youngest
heroes (l to r), daughter Lila and sons
Jonas and Theo. Above: Soccer great
Pele’s influence was such that in 1967 the
Nigerian war was halted for 48 hours so
that the two sides could watch him play.

JUNE 2010 ;e Costco Connection 41of rehashing the Wright brothers’ greatmoment of flight at Kitty Hawk, Meltzerwrites of how every day they would bring tothe field all of the materials needed to rebuildtheir craft “because they knew their fledglingdesign would crash.”“Crash and rebuild. Crash and rebuild.But never ever, ever give up,” he writes.

One of Meltzer’s proudest achievements
came as a byproduct of his research on The